From Franco Corelli: Prince of Tenors: The battle between tenor and conductor reached a climax when Cillario denied Franco his ovation at the end of “E lucevan le stelle.” An infuriated Corelli flipped his overlong thumb to his teeth in disgust and ran offstage. The audience was left stunned, the orchestra still playing the ascending…
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Electric Elaine Eliane Coelho chews the scenery, leaves blood on the stage, and if there are any pregnant women in the audience, probably turns their fetuses gay right on the spot, all in just one scene from the gloriously gory melodrama from Carlos Gomes, Maria Tudor. Since YouTube embedding is acting a little odd this morning,…
La Cieca is sure that her cher public will not want to miss Sunday morning’s (4:30 AM) screening of the camp classic Yes, Giorgio. This 1982 crossover attempt by Luciano Pavarotti (from tenor to matinee idol) must have sounded like a good idea at the time, but, fortunately for music lovers, the film flopped mightily,…
Your doyenne is always diffident about asking you for financial aid, cher public, but recently a few of you inquired how you can help out. It’s easy, actually: using PayPal, you can donate as much (or as little) as you choose (or do not choose) using any major credit card. (For more information on PayPal…
A reader sends this screenshot from his amazon.com account:
UPDATE: We have a winner! Francesco guesses all 12 divas correctly at 2:09 AM today, narrowly defeating Pedro, who achieved another perfect score only three hours later. Congratulations to both gentlemen. The rest of you may continue to play just for fun, and La Cieca will post the solution to the quiz on Friday. The…
La Cieca is happy to report that you, cher public, have made the Amazon Associates Program a rousing success, generating considerable income for the improvement and expansion of parterre.com. Over the past four months, you have purchased literally hundreds of items, of which the most popular can be seen right after the jump:
La Cieca shouldn’t make fun of amazon.com, because, after all, amazon.com is a major sponsor of this site. But still, even a Benevolent Corporate Overlord goofs every now and again. You probably know that for most CDs amazon sells, the web site offers a section of brief audio previews of each track. Very handy, especially…
… well, not tonight, actually, but on Saturday afternoon, when La Cieca once more will convene the faithful for a live chat on the topic of the Met broadcast of Manon Lescaut. Now, honestly cher public, how was La Cieca to resist? You’ve already read Our Own JJ‘s reaction to the performances of Karita Mattila…
La Cieca is once more available for dancing in the streets and shouting from the housetops for the (admittedly off-topic) reason that the Technicolor musical campfest Torch Song has made its long-awaited debut on DVD. Only in 1953 — with the Red Scare, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the growing threat from televsion bewildering studio exectives —…
Wondrous Wenarto is back and more bloodthirsty than ever. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/f876_Xw-LYA” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The Wenarto interpretation is a worthy addition to the YouTube classics by Rysanek, Zauscher.Â
In this operatic adaptation of the Bette Davis classic Dead Ringer, sparks fly when twin sisters Margaret Phillips DeLorca (Grace Bumbry) and Edith Phillips (Grace Bumbry) meet again after 20 years! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://uk.youtube.com/v/8oRpMGQmyG8″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Again, La Cieca extends her gratitude to the amazing coloraturafan.
but she can be a little mysterious a times. The cher public averaged seven out of 11 answers correct on our Casta Diva Quiz, with a four-way tie-up for first position. (By which, La Cieca should perhaps add, she means that four contestants had exactly 10 correct answers, not that your doyenne resorted to some…
One of the cher public sent in this tidbit from the recently-published edition of The Letters of Noël Coward: Went to hear Albanese as Manon Lescaut and it was a grave grave mistake on account of she didn’t ought to have attempted it for several reasons. Time’s Wingèd Chariot being the principal one. She sang most…
La Cieca’s observant spy Joe Conda infiltrated the January 29 interview of Anja Silja and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, reporting that sadly the event was something of a non-starter. He blamed interlocutrix Nimet Habachy, who mostly lobbed “generic” softball questions. La Silja did have a few well-reasoned observations about role preparation and her distaste for the concept…
The clock is running out on the great Sleepwalking Scene contest, ladies and gentlemen! With only three hours and change to go, no one has successfully identified all 14 Ladies. Currently leading the pack with 13 correct are MC (not to be confused with Maria Callas) and DS (not to be confused with, uh, Dame…
Not a whole lot of news on matters operatic in the past couple of days, so La Cieca has decided a competitive quiz is in order. The clip below is the “Sleepwalking Scene” from Verdi’s Macbeth divided among 14 sopranos and mezzo-sopranos. All you have to do is name the 14 singers in the correct…
La Cieca pulled a string or two and managed to get permission to embed a clip from the VAI Lucia so recently lauded by Our Own Niel Rishoi. Of course YouTube video and audio is severely compressed, but the imaginative viewer will surely get the gist that this is a performance for the ages.
Guest critic Niel Rishoi reviews the VAI DVD release of Lucia di Lammermoor. OK, this is IT. Barring the cuts, this is the Lucia of Gaetano Donizetti. Not that misguided travesty at the Met, not Natalie Dessay‘s vocally juddery overwoughtness. No schtick, no Carol Burnetting around. Just Donizetti and Cammarano’s Romantic drama, pure and simple.…
“Seattle Opera did more than put an intermission between the two scenes. It restored, or opened, to use opera terminology, customary cuts in the score and invented a dream sequence to open Act 2, using music written by Leoncavallo but not for Pagliacci. Two mimes, Comedy, in white, and Tragedy, in black, open the opera…
Jummy Jonas Kaufmann records his recital CD Romantic Arias, due for release in March.
If, through some miracle of recombinant DNA manipulation, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh and Maria Montez were to have a child together, La Cieca is certain this is how she (or he, for that matter) would turn out.
Maite Beaumont created a sensation as Sesto in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s recent Giulio Cesare. She’s seen and heard here as Cherubino.
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